$300 grocery experiment: week 3 finances

I hit a bump in the road Monday morning after we set out to the grocery store. It had been snowing non-stop since the previous evening and school was cancelled, but I didn't think much of it and headed over to Aldi. The parking lot was deserted and a sign was on the door saying they didn't have any power. At this point, I got a little nervous thinking Kroger might be closed too. Thankfully, they were open, but this meant in order to get all my shopping done there, I had to make some changes to my meal plan to compensate for price differences.

The two biggest changes were switching loaded potato soup for a half batch of broccoli cheese soup and pumpkin pancakes for banana muffins.

Here's how things ended up working out:

Turkey (for Thanksgiving) $.98/lb (when you spend $10) =$12.37
Pork roast $10.11 (it's a little smaller than I was originally planning, but it was all they had)
4 half gallons of milk at $1.50 each
5lb bag apples $3.99
4 lbs bananas $.55/lb
2.35 lbs ripe bananas $.45/lb
pasta sauce $1.29
assorted canned beans $.69 each x4 (3 for chili and 1 backup in case I didn't have enough pulled pork leftover for the quesadillas)
28 oz jar peanut butter $2.99
16 oz oatmeal $1.59
whole wheat tortillas $1.69
taco sauce $1.50
hot chocolate packets $.99 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
fruit snacks $1.49 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
non-stick cooking spray $2.49 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
apple juice $1.99 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
Cheerios $1.99 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
Barbeque sauce $.99 x2 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
frozen broccoli $1.49 (part of a buy 10 save $5 promotion)
2 bags frozen stir fry vegetables $1 each
4 bags frozen peas and carrots $1 each
shredded casserole blend cheese $1.99 (for broccoli cheese soup)
shredded mexican blend cheese $1.99
dozen eggs $1.99

Total for week 3: $71.96
Total spent on experiment so far: $213.83

A few notes:

• I was not originally planning to do the buy 10 save $5 promotion, but it had part of what I was looking for and allowed me to say yes when Quinn asked for the princess fruit snacks. I did not have any pulled pork leftovers to use for the quesadillas or a BBQ pizza. I settled for black beans in the quesadillas and a cheese pizza with the some of the pasta sauce from spaghetti night on it.
• You might notice that the pasta and diced tomatoes for the chili are missing from the above list, but I purchased those last week to have a little extra since they were on such a good sale. 
• This week I budgeted a large jar of peanut butter instead of a small jar, because the price per ounce is cheaper. I also ended up with an extra bottle of barbeque sauce since I didn't need it for the pizza.
• The 10 lb bag of potatoes I bought the first week finally ran out this week as did the bags of flour I bought last week.

Join me next week for the exciting conclusion to my experiment, which will include the makings for the rest of Thanksgiving dinner in addition to the week's worth of meals.